soon as the General Election was announced, a united statement was issued and eventually signed by 36 societies, including 14 trade unions, among which were the Northern Counties' Weavers' Amalgamation, the Yorkshire General Union of Weavers and Textile Workers, the Irish Textile Operatives' Association, the Leicester Hosiery Union, the Bleachers', Dyers' and Finishers' Association.
After this, when the Prime Minister consented to receive a deputation, twenty-four organisations agreed to take part. One of the speakers was the President of the Guild, who pointed out that—"As married working-women we depend, more than any other class, perhaps, on good laws. Our everyday home life is touched by law at every point. Our houses are both our workshops and our homes, so that Housing and Public Health questions are specially important to us. Our incomes are affected by taxation and by laws relating to Trade Unions, Accidents, Old Age Pensions, and all industrial laws that go to secure the health of the workers. We, as a body of working women, appeal to you to do your best to give us this common right—the right of the Citizen." Many Guild members were in the procession to Downing Street.
The resolution passed at the Annual Congress of the Guild in 1904 asked for the franchise on the same terms as men, taking the same position as the old suffragists. But further discussion showed that this demand did not suit the case of Guild members, and in a statement issued in the spring of 1905 the position of the Guild was defined as
